Calgarians are passionately for or against citywide rezoning, but when it comes to empirical research on the topic, the findings are less sure about the end result.
Calgary is set for a record public hearing beginning April 22, with nearly 700 people signed up to speak and more than 13,000 pages of submission from more than 4,000 Calgarians.
At stake is the citywide rezoning to Residential Grade-Oriented Infill (R-CG), which would automatically open up single-detached home parcels (RC-1) to greater density. Those parcels could have dwellings including single-detached homes, duplexes, semi-detached, townhouses, cottage housing clusters, and rowhouses.
It could also allow for secondary suites and backyard suites.
Advocates on both sides of the issue have cited evidence or publications that draw from available research on the topic, often lacking full context. According to one researcher, however, there just isn’t a large enough body of evidence on large scale rezoning to make a definitive case one way or the other.
Yonah Freemark is a principal research associate in the Metropolitan Housing and Communities Policy Centre at the Urban Institute in Washington D.C. Freemark is also the research director at the Land Use Lab at Urban, and holds master’s degrees in city planning and transportation, and a PhD in urban studies from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT).
Freemark published a literature review in 2023 on zoning changes – both upzoning and downzoning – and their impact on residential construction, housing costs and demography. It looked at cities around the world, from Zurich to Portland, Phoenix to Sao Paolo, Chicago to Auckland, and Minneapolis to Brisbane.
He started off the interview with a reality check of sorts.
“The research on zoning remains relatively new because of the fact that most of the changes have been pretty recent,” Freemark told LWC.
“So, it’s very difficult to make sort-of broad scale assessments about the effect of any individual change, and this is particularly true with regards to policy, like the sort of missing-middle zonings that you’re describing.”
What did the research find?
One of the key aspects of the research review is that no one case is just like the other. Further, there are external influences beyond the zoning ordinance itself (economic, demographic, current housing market, transit accessibility, built form, etc) that impact the overall outcomes.
Freemark said in locations similar to Calgary, like Portland or Minneapolis, upzoning hasn’t had a dramatic effect. In research that Urban Institute conducted on eight US metropolitan areas that tracked zoning changes in thousands of different municipalities, they saw an overall increase in the amount of housing produced and a small reduction in the cost of market-rate housing.
“Both these effects were small, but I do want to emphasize again that unfortunately, we’re talking about a relatively small sample of changes to look at number one, and number two, we sort of compiled these changes into one big sample,” he said.
One of the most influential impacts of rezoning change is the scale of it, Freemark said. There are two ways to look at scale – the citywide rezoning approach that Calgary is taking on a broad land mass, or the size of the housing allowed on a parcel.
“From that perspective, Calgary’s change is actually not a particularly large change, if that makes sense,” he said.
“It’s sort of allowing this missing-middle, small-scale apartment buildings. It’s not allowing large scale, multifamily housing, that is sort of on the lower edge of scale in terms of outcomes.”
Time is a big factor in all of this, too. While early research shows modest gains, if any, the real results might be decades away.
“I think folks don’t always understand that and it’s hard for people to understand, because it feels like, ‘oh, we’re talking about public policy today. Surely, you would expect outcomes at some point,” Freemark said.
“The reality is that it’s going to take a really long time. That isn’t necessarily what people are hoping for.”
When asked a specific question on the decrease in property values if, say, a fourplex was put next to one’s single-family home, Freemark was blunt.
“I can answer that very quickly. There’s literally zero evidence that that is a phenomenon,” he said.
He said most research shows that land values increase as a result of upzoning. Research has shown that’s largely due to the market factoring in the development potential of the site, plus the potential future development of more neighbourhood commercial sites. There’s even greater land value appreciation in areas where market conditions are more favourable.
Modest missing middle results for Minneapolis
The city of Minneapolis, Minnesota first began public engagement on their ambitious Minneapolis 2040 strategy back in 2016. It was the first city in the United States to rezone all residential parcels to allow for greater density. The city had already begun to tackle housing issues with corollary entry points like the elimination of parking minimums and allowing Accessory Dwelling Units (ADUs, like backyard suites and secondary suites) as far back as 2009.
They started their process with the simple question, “What would Minneapolis look like in 2040?,” according to Joe Bernard, planning project manager with the City of Minneapolis.
After they gathered feedback, they worked with their city council to adopt 14 goals for the plan. They wanted to eliminate disparities along racial lines, produce more affordable and accessible housing, build complete neighbourhoods and address climate impacts.
“When we started talking about what the policy ideas were to address these goals, to achieve these goals, production of housing was near the top of the list for almost every one of our goals,” Bernard told LWC.
Allowing the development of built-form units up to a triplex was part of their zoning ordinance reforms. It was only one part, Bernard said. Further, it hasn’t been the area where they’ve seen the most housing growth since the plan’s adoption in 2020. They encouraged apartment development along commercial corridors, and they established building height minimums in high-density zones like transit areas and in the downtown.
Bernard said they’ve only seen between 50 and 60 units annually thus far in duplexes and triplexes. It represents roughly 1.5 per cent of housing units added. That’s still in line with the 750 to 1,000 they expected to build over 20 years. In an email, the City of Calgary said that the overarching goal of their Housing Strategy was to increase the supply of non-market housing by 3,000 units a year and add 1,000 more market units than what would normally be created. They didn’t provide a specific amount related to rezoning, except to say that it’s one of 98 recommendations.
“I think a lot of the rhetoric around adopting the plan was that tons of single-family homes were going to be torn down and replaced by triplexes,” he said.
“That, of course, was never the intent and that’s not how it has happened.”
A Pew research article published in January 2024 said that the city’s duplex and triplex policy has so far had “modest results.”
“In part, the limited success of the duplex and triplex policy may be linked to other aspects of Minneapolis’ zoning code that make building such structures challenging, including low maximum floor-area ratios and 2.5-story height limits in the lowest-density zones,” the article read.
“In contrast, upzoning along commercial and transit corridors and eliminating minimum parking requirements have made housing development cheaper and easier.”
(Worth noting that by taking the greater density approach in some corridors, Minneapolis has been able to keep rent growth far below the rest of Minnesota, while increasing overall housing stock greater than other parts of the state.)
The Auckland example shows promise
In 2016, in response to housing affordability issues that were among the worst in the world, the City of Auckland, NZ (population 1.5 million, 2023) delivered the Auckland Unitary Plan. That plan broadly upzoned 75 per cent of residential areas, tripling the allowed number of units on a residential parcel.
Research from the University of Auckland’s Economic Policy Centre that was published in May 2023 stated “the empirical findings using this methodology reveal strong statistical evidence that upzoning increased housing construction.”
“Our results have implications for ongoing debates about the efficacy of upzoning. In particular, the findings support the view that large-scale upzoning can encourage construction,” it reads.
“Further work examining potential mediating factors that enabled increased construction will hopefully help explain why the policy was more effective in Auckland, and assist policymakers in tailoring rezoning and housing policies to facilitate construction elsewhere.”
That research also points out that there is very little “empirical evidence” on the effect of large-scale upzoning due to the recency of such changes in global cities.
A follow-up report done by the office of Auckland Council Chief Economist, and published in March 2024, reviewed research done on the Auckland Unitary Plan. It summarized their findings, writing that land use policy decisions can have “powerful demand and supply side effects” on land and housing markets. (FULL PAPER BELOW).
“Where zoning policy is relaxed, housing supply becomes more flexible to respond to demand, which facilitates an environment of lower housing prices than otherwise,” it read.
However, it was also quick to point out that this research is specific to the case of Auckland, though it could be applicable to other jurisdictions.
“In saying this, not all jurisdictions should expect the same level of response and housing market outcomes as that experienced by Auckland owing to any combination of social, jurisdictional, topographical, and typological factors,” it read.
The public controversy is the one constant
The city of Atlanta, Georgia has been trying to revisit its zoning ordinance since 2015, when a team of consultants was commissioned to assess and provide recommendations on changes. They’ve had the same zoning ordinance for 40 years.
In 2017, the Atlanta City Design Plan was created, outlining several housing goals – including updates to the zoning that would allow for density flexibility like duplexes, townhomes, triplexes, fourplexes and ADUs. One of the chief architects of that plan was Tim Keane, who was recently hired as Calgary’s Planning and Development GM.
Today, Keane’s plan, while still guiding ongoing housing reform in Atlanta, never reached the goal of zoning ordinance changes. There’s still work being done on it, as Atlanta’s ‘Plan A’, a state-directed Comprehensive Development Plan hits a mandated five-year review.
The zoning ordinance change, when it was attempted, hit various political snags, induced largely by public opposition. It’s not unlike what’s been happening in Calgary.
Keane, in his first public interview with Calgary media, said he’s familiar with citizens being concerned about their properties, and the unknowns around future development.
“I’m so used to people being legitimately concerned about these things, whatever these things are, whether it’s traffic and transportation, whether it’s density, whether it’s zoning related, or it runs the gamut,” he said.
“In my experience, gentrification has been a huge issue everywhere I’ve been. Issues around race and equity, and this kind of stuff, and it always is emotional.”
He said it’s not just division for division’s sake. It’s not a political thing either.
“It’s people with real concerns about their neighbourhood and their property and all this kind of stuff,” he said.
In his time in Charleston, South Carolina, Atlanta, and Boise, Idaho, Keane said there are common concerns around rezoning. Property value declines, uncertainty around unfamiliar change, transportation, congestion, garbage pickup, impact on underground infrastructure – practical concerns, he said.
“I think the thing that I’ve helped the most with when it comes to communities, is just around this: Let’s be honest with each other that we all have a stake in this,” Keane said.
Bernard said the same fears were stoked in Minneapolis as they tried to push through the 2040 plan.
“There was, we called it a ‘lawn sign war’ that occurred with folks who were trying to encourage housing growth and welcome more residents into the city and other folks who took the position that we didn’t need to change our communities in this way to accommodate growth, that there was a lot of fear around tearing down and changing the character of neighbourhoods,” he said.
He said they also dealt with misinformation on the topic, including quelling worries that single-family homes weren’t allowed anymore.
“Of course, that was not true at all,” he said.
“The fact that just conflating issues that aren’t directly related, I think was part of the public discourse that we dealt with.”
ADUs and parking minimums
Areas that saw housing gains often saw it in particular typologies – particularly Accessory Dwelling Units (ADUs) which are backyard suites, secondary suites, or other cottage-style units.
Much of the research mentions the impact of these units on the overall success of zoning reform. Freemark said that’s especially been the case in California.
“I saw that throughout my review of all the scholarship that’s out there, ADU allowances, so backyard cottages for the most part, but also some other changes, are extremely popular, and have probably the biggest effects we’ve seen in North America,” he said.
Another change that’s seen in many cities undertaking upzoning in one form or another is the relaxation of parking minimums. Calgary’s proposed changes include the removal of parking minimums – but they’re highly controversial and could be contested as the debate draws out.
It’s also cited in much of the research as having a significant impact on the success of upzoning. That’s mainly due to the reduction in cost per unit for a developer, which, in theory, is supposed to allow for more units or a lower overall cost per unit.
Freemark said there’s been a lot of research on the impact of upzoning on traffic and parking. The impact – positive or negative – largely depends on the quality of alternatives available, he said.
“We’ve seen situations where you can have very substantial changes in the density of neighbourhoods, and no negative impacts on congestion or parking or anything like that. Because what’s going on is that people essentially choose to walk, bike and things of that sort, and take transit instead of driving,” he said.
“When you have a good living environment, because that denser living environment often brings with it things like neighbourhood retail, things like that; if done right, there isn’t necessarily going to be an increase in traffic or parking needs in the surrounding area.”
Admittedly, Freemark said it feels counterintuitive for many residents.
Keane said he hopes the city sticks with relieving parking requirements. He said the question isn’t ever whether there will be parking available, he said it’s a question of determining what’s really required. That’s up to the builder, he said.
“It’s just, do we want to be the ones telling them they must, and where do our priorities lie? I think that’s the discussion everywhere.”
Incremental change – one of many needed: Freemark
While Auckland showed relatively dramatic results compared to the few other places that have adopted such zoning reforms, and Minneapolis has had modest results thus far, it’s difficult to tell what the short-term impact would be on Calgary.
There are nuances in every city’s zoning reform, the implementation, the market conditions, the scale, and more, that make the crystal ball opaque, especially in the short term. That’s reiterated in Freemark’s research review.
“Though recent research leverages convincing causal methods to make claims about the impacts of zoning change, there still may be unmeasured, endogenous conditions leading to rezonings that influence results,” he wrote.
Calgary’s rezoning bylaw changes are being delivered to the public as one measure of 98 to help increase housing supply, with the belief that it will help boost affordability. It’s shown evidence of having that kind of impact, particularly in cities where marketing conditions are ripe.
Mayor Jyoti Gondek said if the rezoning changes are made, she said Calgarians shouldn’t expect things to change overnight.
“The thing is, if this passes, then it is incremental change. It is not as though every property is suddenly going to be redeveloped,” she said.
“There’s also this misconception that the city is somehow going to come in and tear down existing properties and put up something new. That’s up to every property owner.”
Freemark agreed.
“We’re making these policy changes so that we can solve our affordability problems today, but the reality is, it’s going to take a bit,” he said.
Long term, Freemark said there’s evidence that it helps both housing supply and affordability. His research papers also state that more research is needed in the area, particularly around the factors that influence rezoning success, or failure as it may be.
Still, Freemark said it’s one small tool in a hierarchy of planning tools available for cities to draw on to improve housing conditions. One area is in subsidized, or non-market housing, he said. It improves housing accessibility for lower-income families and is needed to complement rezoning changes.
“Zoning is an important step, but it is just one out of many initiatives that local governments in the US and Canada – the federal government in Canada, provincial governments, need to take to really ensure affordability for communities,” he said.
“Even if the City of Calgary passes this change, I hope that folks there are continuing to think seriously about how they will continue to refine changes over the coming years.”
EVEN MORE CONTEXT ON AUCKLAND, NZ, in this podcast with the researcher.
